Monday, July 20, 2015

Over the past few years working as an IT consultant, I've learned that having easy access to a robust lab where I can learn or test solutions is critical. But my approach to building a test lab has changed over the years.These days I prefer not to "build" a lab but to "define" one — it is a better use of my time.Building requires a long step-by-step process of installing all the necessary components: OS, databases, app servers, one by one based on the documentation. Instead, I can define a lab using tools such as Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Oracle Enterprise Manager, on top of tools that manage Virtual Machines like Vagrant or libvirt.I presented my thoughts during Irish Oracle User Group conference in March 2015 ( How to avoid boring work ) and now I would like to start a series of blog post about this.